IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natsus/v4y2021i1d10.1038_s41893-020-00596-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decoupling livestock and crop production at the household level in China

Author

Listed:
  • Shuqin Jin

    (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China
    Wageningen University)

  • Bin Zhang

    (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China)

  • Bi Wu

    (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China)

  • Dongmei Han

    (Hebei University)

  • Yu Hu

    (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China)

  • Chenchen Ren

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Chuanzhen Zhang

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Xun Wei

    (University of Science and Technology Beijing)

  • Yan Wu

    (Nanjing Audit University)

  • Arthur P. J. Mol

    (Wageningen University)

  • Stefan Reis

    (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
    University of Exeter Medical School, Knowledge Spa)

  • Baojing Gu

    (Zhejiang University
    Zhejiang University)

  • Jie Chen

    (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China)

Abstract

Animal manure used to be the major source of additional nutrients and crucial for maintaining soil fertility and crop yield in traditional farming systems. However, it is increasingly not recycled, wasting vital resources and damaging the environment. By using long-term (1986–2017) data from a rural household survey (>20,000 households) across China, here we show that the share of rural households with both crop planting and livestock raising (CPLR) has sharply declined from 71% in 1986 to only 12% in 2017. Compared with households with only crop planting, the CPLR households apply less synthetic fertilizer and more manure per cropland area. However, manure production in one-third of CPLR households has exceeded the nutrient requirement of crop growth on their croplands. Rebuilding the links between livestock and croplands at a regional scale thus provides vital opportunities for the sustainable intensification of agriculture in China.

Suggested Citation

  • Shuqin Jin & Bin Zhang & Bi Wu & Dongmei Han & Yu Hu & Chenchen Ren & Chuanzhen Zhang & Xun Wei & Yan Wu & Arthur P. J. Mol & Stefan Reis & Baojing Gu & Jie Chen, 2021. "Decoupling livestock and crop production at the household level in China," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 48-55, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41893-020-00596-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41893-020-00596-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00596-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41893-020-00596-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hengfei Song & Liangjie Xin & Xiubin Li & Xue Wang & Yufeng He & Wen Song, 2022. "Can Livestock Raising Alleviate Farmland Abandonment?—Evidence from China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-18, July.
    2. Ouping Deng & Sitong Wang & Jiangyou Ran & Shuai Huang & Xiuming Zhang & Jiakun Duan & Lin Zhang & Yongqiu Xia & Stefan Reis & Jiayu Xu & Jianming Xu & Wim Vries & Mark A. Sutton & Baojing Gu, 2024. "Managing urban development could halve nitrogen pollution in China," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Tan, Meixiu & Hou, Yong & Zhang, Ling & Shi, Shengli & Long, Weitong & Ma, Yifei & Zhang, Tao & Oenema, Oene, 2022. "Nutrient use efficiency of intensive dairy farms in China – Current situation and analyses of options for improvement," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    4. Xiao Chen & Zeyuan He & Huarui Wu & Changji Wen & Tao Tao & Xinyu Yang & You Tang & Hongliang Guo & Helong Yu, 2023. "Multi-Objective Optimization of Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems: Exploring Resource Allocation Based on Emergy Evaluation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, May.
    5. Zhe Zhao & Xiangzheng Deng & Fan Zhang & Zhihui Li & Wenjiao Shi & Zhigang Sun & Xuezhen Zhang, 2022. "Scenario Analysis of Livestock Carrying Capacity Risk in Farmland from the Perspective of Planting and Breeding Balance in Northeast China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Yiming Sang & Liangjie Xin, 2023. "Factors Determining Concurrent Reclamation and Abandonment of Cultivated Land on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, May.
    7. Kai Tang, 2022. "The Effect of Left-Behind Women on Fertilizer Use: Evidence from China’s Rural Households Engaging in Rural-Urban Migration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Liu, Min & Xu, Wenli & Zhang, Hangyu & Chen, Huang & Bie, Qiang & Han, Guodong & Yu, Xiaohua, 2022. "Livestock production, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and grassland conservation: Quasi-natural experimental evidence," MPRA Paper 115704, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Jianxing Chen & Xuesong Gao & Yanyan Zhang & Petri Penttinen & Qi Wang & Jing Ling & Ting Lan & Dinghua Ou & Yang Li, 2023. "Analysis on Coupling Coordination Degree for Cropland and Livestock from 2000 to 2020 in China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-20, June.
    10. Fang, Guozhu & Zhang, Xiaoheng & Qi, Chunjie, 2021. "Are Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems More Technical Efficiency? Evidence from Small Farmers in China," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315129, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natsus:v:4:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41893-020-00596-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.